Gloucester’s real estate tax revenues down from earlier projections

Though the numbers aren’t final, Nickie Champion, Gloucester’s director of financial services, reported to the county’s board of supervisors Tuesday night during its regular meeting in the colonial courthouse on the financial condition of the county at the end of the last fiscal year. One of the troubling areas she mentioned was a decline in revenue from the county’s real estate tax.

Champion said that revenues in the county’s general fund exceeded expenditures by $1.5 million. Much of this, she said, is because property tax collections came in $930,772 over budget in the last fiscal year. "The majority of this increase in property tax collections can be attributed to recapturing the lost vehicle value from 2009," she added.

However, Champion said that the overall revenue the county brought into the general fund was $590,224 under what had originally been projected. One category where she said the county saw a revenue shortfall was real estate tax.

Revenue from real estate tax was down $545,867 from its projection. Champion said she thought the decline in what was forecast for real estate revenue is the result of last-minute assessment changes made either by the assessor or the county’s board of equalization. "We probably set the equalized tax rate a little lower than we should have," she added.